Courting of Alaska Air
to pay off

Flights to Seattle on 70-seat regional jet to start Nov. 1

by wayne heilman
mcclatchy-tribune

Published: October 8, 2013;Last modified: October 8, 2013 05:00AM

COLORADO SPRINGS — Within days of learning in January that Frontier Airlines would cut its flights to Colorado Springs, executives from the Colorado Springs Airport turned their attention to Alaska Airlines, the nation’s seventh-largest carrier and one that has been on a growth spurt since 2012.

On Nov. 1, their effort will bear fruit when Seattle-based Alaska begins daily nonstop flights between Colorado Springs and its hub at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. It’s the first new destination and carrier added to the Colorado Springs Airport since Frontier Airlines exited the market in April.

Alaska won’t fill the hole left by Frontier, which accounted for 20 percent of the airport’s passenger traffic, but its arrival is expected to generate more than $500,000 in annual revenue and boost traffic by more than 20,000 passengers a year.

Alaska executives declined an interview but said in a statement that it’s been expanding in Colorado, including a seasonal flight to Steamboat Springs that starts Dec. 18. The state “offers a wealth of business and recreational opportunities, and thus is a solid market for air travel,” the company told the Gazette newspaper.

Alaska’s strategy is much different from the strategy used by Frontier. Frontier operated four flights a week on a seasonal basis with 138-seat Airbus A319 aircraft. The Alaska flight will be operated daily by SkyWest Airlines with a 70-seat regional jet.

“They are coming in with a much smaller aircraft from a market where they are the dominant player,” Seattle aviation consultant Scott Hamilton said. “You have to wonder what strategy Frontier had in serving either market, Seattle or Colorado Springs. It probably was a market they should not have been in to begin with.”

Alaska Airlines traces its roots to 1932 when McGee Airways started flying a three-seat aircraft between Anchorage and Bristol Bay, Alaska. It merged two years later with Star Air Service to create the state’s largest airline, which became Alaska Airlines.

The airline remained small and mostly confined to Alaska, but thrived by offering charter flights to cities in the continental U.S., Soviet Union and even Japan. When the airline industry was deregulated in the late 1970s, Alaska gradually expanded down the West Coast and eventually to Mexico. In 1986, Alaska acquired regional airline Horizon Air and continues to operate it as a separate regional carrier.

Alaska expanded into Hawaii in 2008 after the bankruptcy and shutdown of Aloha Airlines. Flights to Hawaii now make up 20 percent of Alaska’s operations.

By the end of this year, the airline will have added 35 markets since the beginning of 2012, including Philadelphia, San Antonio and San Diego last year and Colorado Springs and Kansas City, Mo., this year.